"Preventing the Mutilation of American Children": A Factual Deconstruction
I know I have been tied up with work and life for a while, and have been pretty much unplugged outside of work, so I am a bit behind on things. That is why today we are examining what happens when someone gives the Department of Justice a subscription to Newsmax and a thesaurus with only one page: the one containing the word "mutilation."
The 2025 Bondi memo, titled with the subtle nuance of a foghorn in a library – "PREVENTING THE MUTILATION OF AMERICAN CHILDREN" – reads less like a legal document and more like what would happen if your uncle's most unhinged Facebook posts gained sentience and passed the bar exam. It's a memo that manages to combine the scientific accuracy of a Facebook meme with the legal reasoning of someone who learned law exclusively from "Law & Order" marathon weekends.
The DOJ's New Medical Degree
The 2025 Bondi memo begins by claiming there's "a radical ideological agenda being pushed throughout every aspect of American life." Every aspect! That's right – your toaster is probably teaching your children about pronouns while you sleep.
The memo asserts transgender youth healthcare is a "sociological disease" – which would be a fascinating medical breakthrough if it weren't for one tiny problem:
Do you know who disagrees with this assessment? Literally every major medical organization in the United States.
The American Medical Association's official position: "Forgoing gender-affirming care can have tragic health consequences... The AMA opposes restrictions on comprehensive health care that is built on medical evidence." [1]
The American Academy of Pediatrics: "The AAP has consistently opposed all legislative and regulatory actions that discriminate against transgender youth and their families or criminalize evidence-based care." [2]
The American Psychological Association: "Based on a rigorous examination of the scholarly literature available, the APA affirms that gender identity treatments are evidence-based care." [3]
The memo cites that 1.4% of teenagers identify as transgender with the phrase "tragic and absurd" – the same reaction many have when seeing the DOJ attempt to practice medicine without a license.
But sure, let's trust politically appointed DOJ officials with exactly zero medical training. Why rely on thousands of doctors when you can just ask... checks notes... politicians with law degrees who couldn't diagnose a stubbed toe?
Cherry-Picking: Olympic Level Event
The memo cites exactly ONE detransitioner's story – Chloe Cole – as definitive evidence. And look, detransition stories deserve compassion and consideration. But using a single case to set national policy is like banning all umbrellas because one person once poked themselves in the eye.
What does the memo say about the outcomes of gender-affirming care? Nothing!
What does actual research say? Oh, just pesky little facts like these:
A comprehensive review by Cornell University examined 55 peer-reviewed studies on outcomes of gender-affirming care. 51 (93%) found positive effects, 4 (7%) found mixed or null results, and exactly zero found negative overall outcomes. [4]
The largest study on detransition, published in LGBT Health, found that only 0.3-0.6% of patients detransitioned due to actually realizing they weren't transgender. Most detransitioners cited external pressure - family rejection, discrimination, or employment concerns - not regret. [5]
So basically, the memo is saying "Let's base national policy on 0.3% of cases while ignoring the 99.7% that don't fit our narrative." That's like banning all peanut butter because some people have allergies. I mean, I'm sympathetic to allergies, but maybe we could just have warning labels instead of nationwide prohibition?
What Actually Mutilates American Children?
You want to know what actually mutilates the hearts, minds and futures of American children? Conversion therapy! You know, those "pray away the gay" programs that have been denounced by every reputable medical organization but are still legal in 22 states.
A 2020 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that LGBTQ youth who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report having attempted suicide. [6] But strangely, the DOJ doesn't seem particularly concerned about that form of actual, documented harm.
You know what else devastates children's well-being? Denying them healthcare that medical professionals have determined they need.
When Texas implemented policies targeting transgender healthcare, crisis calls from transgender youth to The Trevor Project increased by 150% in just weeks. [7] Children reported increased suicidal thoughts, severe depression, and families reported having to choose between leaving their homes or denying their kids care.
You know what has proven to be more harmful and mutilate children? Guns and bullets used in mass shootings. Fun fact - About 99% of all mass shooters are cisgender, where is your memo about banning cisgender people from carrying guns? Is death by lead poisoning and forced bullet ingestion not mutilating, tragic, and absurd enough?
But apparently that kind of suffering doesn't warrant a memo in ALL CAPS.
The Legal Pretzel Logic
"In a world where medical consensus doesn't matter, one Attorney General will reinterpret existing laws in ways their drafters never imagined..."
The most creative fiction in this memo is the suggestion that gender-affirming care somehow violates the Female Genital Mutilation law.
Do you know what the FGM law was actually designed to prevent? Non-medical cultural practices performed without consent, often in non-sterile conditions, with the specific purpose of controlling female sexuality.
Do you know what gender-affirming care involves? Medical procedures performed by licensed physicians, with parental consent, following established protocols, with the purpose of alleviating documented psychological distress. But why let statutory intent get in the way of a good moral panic?
The FGM statute was explicitly designed to criminalize cultural practices with no medical benefit. Applying it to procedures performed by licensed physicians following established medical protocols fundamentally misinterprets legislative intent. [8]
Even the text of the FGM law itself contains a specific exception for procedures "necessary to the health of the person on whom it is performed."
So using this law to ban gender-affirming care makes about as much sense as using anti-dog-fighting laws to shut down veterinary surgeries. It's almost as if... and I know this is shocking... the legal reasoning was reverse-engineered to reach a predetermined conclusion!
What Gender-Affirming Care ACTUALLY Is
Would you like to know what gender-affirming care for minors actually involves in real life, as opposed to the horror movie playing in the DOJ's imagination?
For prepubescent children:
- Social transitions only (clothing, names, pronouns)
- No medical interventions whatsoever
- Mental health support
- Exploration of identity without pressure in either direction
For early adolescents:
- Extensive psychological evaluation (typically months)
- Reversible puberty blockers only after thorough assessment
- Parental consent required
- Regular monitoring and reassessment
For older adolescents (typically 16+):
- Years of persistent gender dysphoria documented
- Hormone therapy only after comprehensive evaluation
- Multiple healthcare professional involvement
- Ongoing mental health support
The reality is the when it comes to transgender healthcare for youth, it bears no resemblance to how it's portrayed in political documents. These are careful, deliberative processes with multiple safeguards.
“The order’s characterization of medical care for transgender minors bears no resemblance to reality,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the Lesbian Center for Transgender Rights said in reference to the "PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION" executive order signed earlier this year. “This is an attempt to impose an extreme ideological agenda through hyperbole and fear, not a responsible attempt to address this issue.” [9]
So the "mutilation of children" described in the memo exists in approximately the same universe as unicorns and affordable housing in San Francisco.
The Scientific "Purge"
The memo demands "purging" all references to WPATH guidelines, calling them "junk science."
Do you know what the WPATH Standards of Care actually are?
- Developed by 120+ medical experts across 25 specialties
- Based on systematic review of over 3,000 scientific papers
- 8 versions over 40+ years, each incorporating emerging evidence
- Undergoes rigorous peer review before publication
- Endorsed by over 30 international medical societies
Do you know what actual "junk science" looks like? Political documents that cite a single anecdote as definitive evidence while ignoring thousands of peer-reviewed studies.
So basically, the DOJ is calling "junk science" what the entire global medical community calls "evidence-based practice." This is like calling gravity "just a theory" right before stepping off a cliff. But sure, let's instead trust -checks notes- political appointees with no medical training.
Retroactive Justice: Making Up Rules After the Game
The pièce de résistance is the call for "retroactive liability" for providers who followed the best medical guidance available at the time.
Do you know who thinks retroactive criminalization is a bad idea? The Founding Fathers! That's why they explicitly prohibited it in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution with the Ex Post Facto Clause.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch (not exactly a liberal activist) wrote: "Retroactive application of new interpretations deprives citizens of fair notice of what is required of them under the law." [10]
This is essentially saying, "We're changing the rules and then punishing you for following the old ones." That's like getting a speeding ticket because the DOJ decided yesterday that the speed limit you drove under last year should have been lower. But instead of getting a fine and wasted hours in traffic school, you get federal prison time! Fun!
The Real Agenda
Let's be honest – this memo isn't about protecting children. If it were, it would address the actual statistical threats to youth: gun violence, poverty, climate change, or, I don't know, the dramatically elevated suicide risk that comes from denying transgender youth appropriate care.
This is about using a vulnerable minority as a political football. It's about creating an enemy to rally against. It's about weaponizing the Department of Justice – which should protect ALL Americans – to score political points.
When political actors target medical care for a specific minority group against the recommendations of medical experts, it typically represents political strategy rather than genuine health concern. Whenever the conservatives need to whip the base into a frenzy in order to get votes, minority populations tend get an extra serving of short, cishetero white sha- er, well, sticks.
We've seen this pattern before. In the 1990s and 2000s, gay "conversion therapy" was promoted using nearly identical language about "protecting children" despite overwhelming evidence of harm. They can't even come up with new and original material - it is all just recycled and rehashed anti-gay rhetoric of yesteryear, copied straight from Anita Bryant's playbook.
And while we are talking about historical patterns and lessons to learn from them - let's talk about one of the more chilling aspects of these policies - the creation of "whistleblower" hotlines and legal protections for those who report families seeking gender-affirming care for their children.
Do you know what other political systems relied heavily on encouraging citizens to inform on their neighbors? Nazi Germany's program of civilian informants who reported on Jewish families and other "undesirables." East Germany's Stasi, which created a society where neighbors spied on neighbors. McCarthy's America, where citizens were encouraged to report suspected "communist sympathizers."
When Texas created a system for reporting parents of transgender youth to child protective services, they weren't innovating - they were following an authoritarian playbook that's been used to target minority groups throughout history. Creating a culture of fear where teachers, doctors, and neighbors are incentivized to report families to authorities isn't protecting children - it's surveillance state tactics applied to vulnerable populations.
So either this is a remarkable coincidence, or – hear me out – transgender youth are being used as political props in a cynical attempt to mobilize voters. And I don't believe in coincidences that convenient.
The Human Cost
If implemented, this memo wouldn't "save" children – it would endanger them. It would drive care underground or out of reach, increase family separation, and most tragically, likely increase suicide rates among transgender youth who suddenly find their healthcare criminalized.
Do you know what happens when states implement these kinds of policies? Real harm to real children.
When Texas implemented similar policies, documented outcomes included:
- 150% increase in crisis contacts from transgender youth [11]
- 42% of affected families considering moving out of state [12]
- 68% reporting financial hardship from medical travel [12]
- 51% of children experiencing school disruption [12]
- 87% reporting increased family stress [12]
As we can see, when politically motivated policies interrupt established medical care, we see immediate increases in depression, anxiety, and suicidality among affected patients. These aren't abstract concerns – they're measurable outcomes.
The kids who would be "protected" by these policies don't exist in the fantasy world where social media single-handedly "creates" transgender identities. But real children who need care do exist, and they deserve better than to have their healthcare determined by political memos rather than medical science.
In Conclusion...
This memo doesn't represent justice or protecting the children – it represents weaponizing governmental power against a vulnerable population based on political ideology rather than evidence.
The real protection of children would involve:
- Following established medical guidance
- Respecting family medical decisions
- Allocating resources toward actual threats to youth
- Ensuring access to comprehensive mental health support
Instead, we have a document with the legal reasoning of a conspiracy theorist's Reddit post and the scientific accuracy of a Magic 8-Ball, all written with the subtlety of – yes, we're coming full circle – a foghorn in a library.
Because I think reasonable people can agree that medicine should be practiced in exam rooms based on evidence, not in legislative chambers based on ideology.
And that should concern all of us – because a Justice Department that can disregard scientific evidence and medical consensus to criminalize one type of care today can do the same to other types of care tomorrow.
And as history can show us, there has been a consistent pattern: whether it was gay teachers in the 70s, same-sex parents in the 90s, or transgender youth today, the playbook remains identical – create a moral panic about "protecting children" to justify political attacks on the marginalized.
The real tragedy here isn't just that we're repeating history, though that is bad enough already – it's that we're doing it knowing exactly how much harm it will cause, and deciding that some children's suffering is an acceptable price for political power.
References
[1] American Medical Association. (2023). AMA statement on protecting gender-affirming care. https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2023/ama-gender-affirming-care
[2] American Academy of Pediatrics. (2023). AAP continues to support care for transgender youth. https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/25340/AAP-reaffirms-gender-affirming-care-policy
[3] American Psychological Association. (2023). APA reiterates its support for gender-affirming care amid state bans. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/02/policy-supporting-transgender-nonbinary
[4] Cornell University. (2023). What We Know Project: What does the scholarly research say about the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being? https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/
[5] Turban, J. L., Loo, J., Almazan, A. N., & Keuroghlian, A. S. (2021). Factors leading to "detransition" among transgender and gender diverse people in the United States: A mixed-methods analysis. LGBT Health, 8(4), 273-280. doi: 10.1089/lgbt.2020.0437. Epub 2021 Mar 31. PMID: 33794108; PMCID: PMC8213007. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33794108/
[6] Ryan C, Toomey RB, Diaz RM, Russell ST. Parent-Initiated Sexual Orientation Change Efforts With LGBT Adolescents: Implications for Young Adult Mental Health and Adjustment. J Homosex. 2020;67(2):159-173. doi: 10.1080/00918369.2018.1538407. Epub 2018 Nov 7. PMID: 30403564; PMCID: PMC10371222. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10371222/
[7] NPR. (2022). In Texas, an unrelenting assault on trans rights is taking a mental toll. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1082975946/anti-trans-bills-texas
[8] Outlawing Trans Youth: State Legislatures and the Battle over Gender-Affirming Healthcare for Minors. (2021). Harvard Law Review, 134(6), 2163–2185. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27028816
and
Kirkland,Anna,Shauhin Talesh,Angela K. Perone. 2021. “ Health insurance rights and access to health care for trans people: The social construction of medical necessity.” Law & Society Review 55(4): 539–562. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12575. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lasr.12575
[9] Shefali Luthra, Kate Sosin, Orion Rummler. Jan 28, 2025. Trump directs federal government to restrict access to gender-affirming care for youth.https://19thnews.org/2025/01/trump-directs-federal-government-to-restrict-access-to-gender-affirming-care/
[10] Gorsuch, N. M., majority opinion, United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4632235/united-states-v-davis/
[11] See 7 above
[12] Borah L, Zebib L, Sanders HM, Lane M, Stroumsa D, Chung KC. State Restrictions and Geographic Access to Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Youth. JAMA. 2023;330(4):375–378. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.11299
